Bilia castanea (Carvalho, 1951) Biliola castanea Carvalho, 1951: 388. HOLOTYPE: ♀, India, Karnataka, Nandidrug Hill [= Nandi Hills] (BMNH). Type material examined. HOLOTYPE:, ‘Type’ [printed circle with red border], ‘n.s.’ [handwritten], ‘S. India: / Nandidrug Hill. / 4,500 feet’ [printed], ‘Pres. by / Dr. T. V. Campbell. / B.M.1928-189’ [printed], ‘Biliola / castanea n. sp. / J.C.M. Carvalho det. 1951’ [handwritten + printed] (BMNH). Additional material examined. INDIA: KARNATAKA: Bangalore, 11.vii.2011, 1 1 ♀ (TKPM). TAMIL NADU: Hosur, Salem, iv.2015, 4 ♀♀ (TKPM, NBAIR). Distribution in India. Karnataka: Bangalore, Nandi Hills (CARVALHO 1951, YASUNAGA et al. 2016b); Tamil Nadu: Hosur, Salem (this paper); West Bengal (GHOSH et al. 1981). General distribution. China (Hainan), Taiwan (PÉRICART 1996, BU & ZHENG 2001). Biology. The species inhabits plantations of Brassica nigra, grape (Vitis sp.), Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, Zizyphus, mulberry (Morus sp.), brinjal (Solanum melongena) and is reported to feed on thrips, the aphid Lipaphis erysimi (Kaltenbach, 1843) and the two spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae (GHOSH et al. 1981, BALLAL & YAMADA 2016). This species has also been observed feeding on aphids and the eggs and nymphs of cicadellids (CARAYON & MIYAMOTO 1960).

Published as part of Ballal, Chandish R., Akbar, Shahid Ali, Yamada, Kazutaka, Wachkoo, Aijaz Ahmad & Varshney, Richa, 2018, Annotated catalogue of the flower bugs from India (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae, Lasiochilidae), pp. 207-226 in Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 58 (1) on pages 215-216, DOI: 10.2478/aemnp-2018-0018, http://zenodo.org/record/3699210